


Exhausted

by SunOfIcarus



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Isolation, Lack of Communication, Like vaguely at the end but still, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28623297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunOfIcarus/pseuds/SunOfIcarus
Summary: In which the reason George sleeps through every SMP event is because he's depressed, and can't find the strength to even get up most days.Dream and Sapnap unknowingly make it worse.---Song title: Exhausted by Chloe Moriondo
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 46
Kudos: 198





	1. You Are Too Tired For This

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all! Just a bit of a heads up, so I did put a TW for suicidal thoughts in the tags, not really sure if it was needed? It's only a sentence at the very end, but I thought I'd include it in case. Stay safe!
> 
> Also!! This is entirely a work of fiction! Though some events are based on things that happened in real life, this is all absolutely fictional. I'm sure George sleeps through events because he feels like it, lol, not because of anything like this. I just thought it would be an interesting scenario to write about.

It was easier, in a way, that George’s depression became some sort of joke.

He didn’t have to talk about it, then, certainly didn’t have to address it as a problem. It was funny that he slept through important events with his friends, hilarious that he still lived with his mum. It was easier that way.

It would stay easy.

***

George awakes with a special sort of bleariness. He doesn’t feel rested, or refreshed, even though he can already tell he’s been sleeping for longer than suggested (because he hardly ever sleeps for less).

His vision is blurry, no matter how many times he rubs his slender fingers across his eyelids. Sweat sticks to his hair and face, making him feel greasy and weighed down. He’s unsure of the time. Sunlight is doing its best to push past his thick blinds, but George had bought them thick for a reason.

He shuffles around for a moment to try to find his phone. The blankets are bunched thick around his legs, a single flat pillow lying underneath his arm. Any fluff it had previously had had been squished down through years of pressure and sweat. He had been meaning to buy a new one, really, he just… couldn’t. Not now, anyway. Waking up already took everything out of him, making him immediately so exhausted that he went right back to sleep. Getting up, throwing on clothes, and making it to the store? Impossible.

So for now, he shifts himself upwards on the palm of his hand, using his other hand to finally bring his phone towards himself.

The brightness of the screen has George wincing. Even at its lowest brightness, it still feels too bright.

He frowns as he checks the time. 11:53 AM.

All things considered, not the worst. Certainly not the latest he’s slept in.

It’s what he thinks, anyways, until his eyes go lower.

It doesn’t even stop at Discord notifications. He can see the multiple messages from Quackity, the number of which make George feel slightly ill. There’s a few missed calls, as well, and George can only assume Quackity was trying to call him during the stream.

The stream he was supposed to have been in.

They were all from a few hours ago, though. George was far too late to even peak in, to give the audience even a little content.

He can feel his eyes begin to sting, a little, and even though it’s almost noon it’s still far too early to do anything about it.

The jumper enveloping his frame feels slightly suffocating in the heat. It had been cold when he had gone to bed, a fact that had evidently changed throughout his hours of sleep.

He fiddles with the edge of the jumper.

He should take it off. He should turn on a fan, open a window, do anything to combat the heat that’s beginning to bog his mind.

He should respond to Quackity.

He does none of those.

There’s an ache forming in his head, and George can’t tell whether it’s from dehydration or guilt.

Not like it matters. As sleep overtakes him, the ache settles into a slight buzz.

He’ll do better next time.

***

“George! How do you keep fucking sleeping through important events!?”

George forces a chuckle out of his throat as Quackity screams at him.

It’s funny, he supposes, or at least his audience seems to think so. It’s become a bit, of sorts: George sleeps through an important event, dramatic shit happens, George comes back right as it all wraps up.

It makes it a bit easier on him. There’s no need to make an excuse as to why he was never involved in SMP drama.

He was sleeping.

More than that, even less than an excuse or vague reasoning, it was the truth.

He was sleeping.

He was always sleeping.

“Why can’t you just show up to one thing, George? El Rapids was depending on you!”

It leaves a bitter taste on his tongue. It’s roleplay, certainly, but there’s a bittersweet truth layered and laced within it.

El Rapids may not have been depending on him, no. Not really.

It was Quackity that had been depending on him.

The constant stream of texts sent during every stream go unanswered every time. If George is lucky, Quackity doesn’t bring up the fact that he never answered. If he was unlucky, as he often was, Quackity would make sure to bring it up as soon as George entered the VC.

“George! Answer your fucking phone when I call! You gave me your number for this shit, El Rapids was just blown up cause you weren’t here! You could have stopped Dream or some shit!”

George wasn’t actually sure why he gave Quackity his number.

A joke, at the time. And hey, what was the problem with it? Quackity gets his number, fucking meows, and the joke is over.

That’s as far as George assumed it was going to go. It didn’t take George long to learn he had underestimated Quackity’s persistence with his new-found power.

Quackity liked to facetime. Which, though slightly touching to George (someone wanted to talk to him. Not during a stream, not to plan out streams and plotlines. Just to talk), became a slight problem.

George learned rather quickly how to act more put together than he actually was.

It was easy for streams. Dig through his laundry for a decent hoodie, run his fingers through his hair until it laid nicely across his forehead.

He had time when he was streaming. He didn’t have time when Quackity called, and he was awoken from a deep rooted sleep that had practically been drowning him.

He learns to get up quickly, how to ignore the instant threat of blacking out. Learned how to stumble and fall into his chair, as though he had been awake and working for a while instead of wasting away.

Somedays, George can get away with facing the camera towards the ceiling. Not every day, but some days.

“-eorge! You’re not even listening right now and we’re in real fucking life!”

George blinks. “Sorry, what?”

Quackity’s angry facade falls, quickly being replaced with a screeching laughter.

George lets himself laugh too.

Quackity didn’t know. Quackity didn’t have to know.

So he let his depressive habit become an iconic joke, a bit that screamed a bit too truthfully in his ears.

But he couldn’t hear the screaming if the weight of sleep enveloped him instead.

***

“George. You awake, hun?”

He almost flinches at the hand that lands on his shoulder. It’s a gentle touch, but considering the tranquility of the darkness before this, scared him enough for his eyelids to flutter open.

“You’re sweating half to death, George. Do you want me to get a fan for you?”

George just mumbles noncommittally. Maybe it’s unfair to his mum, to hardly even shift at her presence, but by this point she has to be used to it.

He curls further into himself as her hand gently brushes his hair.

“Are you gonna stream today?”

Another shrug. He hadn’t been planning to. He hadn’t been planning on waking up today at all, if he were to be honest with her, but he doesn’t say such.

His heart tugs slightly as he hears her sigh.

“Alright. I’ll take some of the trash out, alright? I left another bottle of water on the nightstand.”

He waits until he hears the click of the door as his mother leaves.

He supposes a son shouldn’t be embarrassed to drink water in front of his own mother.

But most people didn’t need help with that. Most people didn’t need their own mothers to pick up their shit, to make sure they didn’t overheat in their own bedroom and die.

And even though he hates himself for every inch he drops towards the mattress, he still drops.

When he awakes, it’s to the sound of a gentle fan whirring.

***

His phone was ringing.

It was soft, muffled by something, but loud enough that George left the haze of sleep he was in.

He searches for his phone without even opening his eyes. Finally feeling the object in his fingers, he blindly answers the call and presses it to his ear.

“... Hello?” He croaks.

“George, are you fucking serious? Did you just wake up?”

And then George is awake.

Dream’s voice rings through the receiver, and it sounds  _ mad. _

“Y- Yeah, I did, what- what’s going on?”

Dream huffs, and George can simultaneously feel his heart drop. Dream doesn’t get upset. Not really, anyway, not easily. Not by his friends.

“We were supposed to start filming, like, an hour and a half ago. I’ve called you, like, twenty times.”

“Oh- Shit, sorry,” George stammers, tripping over his own blankets in an effort to get to his gaming chair. “Sorry, sorry, just let me pull everything up-”

“George, just-” Dream takes a deep breath, then, and George doesn’t even need to hear the rest of the sentence. “Sapnap and I are just gonna record without you, alright? We already have everything set up, and Sapnap has an appointment to get to, so we can’t really wait for you.”

George can feel the burn of his cheeks. He closes his hand into a fist, ignoring the sting of his eyes and the flush of shame that’s overtaken him. “Oh. Okay.”

He takes a deep stuttering breath, clenching his fist tighter so his nails dig into his skin. His lips are chapped, mouth so dry it hurts to breathe, but he has to say some sort of apology. “Dream, I-”

And then he pauses. Dream had already hung up, leaving George with the ghost of an apology on his tongue.

He can’t stop the tremble of his hand as he sets the phone down.

He had let him down. He had let them both down, Dream and Sapnap consecutively, in the span of a single evening.

All he had to do was get up. Wake up, actually get dressed, do everything a normal fucking human being could do everyday.

They didn’t ask anything else of him. Just that he be on time to record.

And he couldn’t even do that.

A sob gently pushes past George’s lips.

How was he this fucking helpless?

George curls into himself, bringing his knees up to his chin and gripping his hair in his hands.

The only sounds in the room are his cries and his fan.

***

“-a little bitch.”

George blinks. The white of his screen lies harshly in his eyes, and he realizes that he didn’t know any of what Dream had just said. “Sorry, what?”

Dream groans, while Sapnap just laughs.

“No, sorry, I wasn’t paying attention, what did you say? What were you talking about?”

Sapnap laughs louder. Dream just sighs.

George smiles nervously, hiding his twisting fingers underneath the desk.

It wasn’t that he had meant to zone out, really, he hadn’t. It was just hard to focus. If he wasn’t making the conscious decision to listen, he found himself floating away.

“Okay, okay, I’ll say it again. Listen though this time, George!”

George just nods, silently begging himself to stay grounded this time around.

***

“Wake up, hun.”

“Hm?”

“Did you fall asleep after recording or something?”

“Y- Yeah. I guess.”

“Do you need help getting to bed?”

“No, I’ve got it.”

“Alright. I’ve got some business calls to make downstairs, so if you stream, could you please stay a bit quiet?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Alright. Love you, George.”

“Love you too, Mum.”

***

He was late. Again. He was late, and his mum was making business calls downstairs, and Dream was going to be pissed.

His computer isn’t loading fast enough, and when it finally does George opens Discord faster than he ever has before.

“-an probably edit it before next week, the only thing-”

Sapnap falters at the sound of George joining the channel.

“Fucking finally! Took you long enough, George, we were supposed to start like twenty minutes ago,” Sapnap complains.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” George mumbles back. “My mum is doing important phone calls for work downstairs, so I’ll have to be quiet-”

Dream interrupts him with a slightly annoyed laugh. “Really, George? Yeah right, like you can be quiet while recording a video.”

“I can too,” George retorts.

“It’ll make for a boring video,” Sapnap interjects.

This one does make George falter. “I mean- I guess…”

Dream gives a long sigh, one that gives George a grim feeling of Deja Vu. “Let’s just do it later, George. When is she going to be done?”

“I- I don’t know, I think she’s working all day. We can do it right now though, really, it won’t be too much of a problem-”

“George.”

He falters again. Dream’s voice is stern, leaving no room for argument. 

“Just go back to bed. We can reschedule.”

George considers fighting it more. Considers insisting that he could make the recording, that he could be entertaining despite needing to be quiet, that he could still be useful to them.

He doesn’t, though. Instead, with feeble hands and a weak sound of affirmation, he leaves the call.

He goes to sleep for a long time after that.

***

George smiles as he leans back into his bed. For once, it’s not to sleep, it’s not to act as though the world around him would finally leave him alone. It’s simply to relax.

He’s proud of what he had managed to do. Woke up around noon, which, all things considered, was much better than usual. He had gone with his mum to run errands, wearing a different hoodie than yesterday (though the pants he had found crumpled on the ground).

For once in a long, long time, he was feeling… fine. Maybe not exceptionally well, he certainly wouldn’t identify it as joyful or anything along those lines. But he felt okay. Which he hadn’t felt in a while.

So he let himself take a break today. Streaming would just stress him out, he was sure of it, and he didn’t want to risk losing himself at the end of a fine day.

His reminiscing falters as he hears voices begin to shout from his phone speaker.

“What the hell?” Sapnap yells as a spider begins to attack him in the cave. Dream is mocking him the moment his death pops up on the scream.

“It’s not my fault, Dream!” Sapnap yells back. “If George was here, that wouldn’t have happened, he came out of nowhere!”

And that… Does put a small damper on things. George falters, for a moment, before shaking his head. They knew he wouldn’t be streaming today, and there was no expectation to. No one was forcing him to.

“He’s probably sleeping, honestly,” Dream says casually. “It’s like, all he ever does.”

Sapnap giggles. “Or maybe his mom told him he couldn’t be loud again.”

“What?” Bad interrupts, confused.

Dream groans. “George was late to a recording so we had to reschedule. And then he was late  _ again _ to the reschedule,  _ and  _ he wasn’t allowed to be loud!”

“Yeah, yeah! So we were like, ‘What the hell George,’ and he was like, ‘Well my mum is making business calls-’” He says that bit in a terrible British accent, but doesn’t get very far before Dream interrupts him.

“Like what the hell? So we’re like, ‘George! Fucking, we can’t record like that!’ So now we have to reschedule it, and we haven’t even come up with a date for that. Like, just- get sound-proofing stuff or something-”

“Move out!” Sapnap interrupts, a mocking rage to his voice. “Why do you still live with your mom?! Move out!”

“Honestly! It’s like he sleeps for so long he just can’t do it. Like what the hell, Geor-”

The screen dims. George is left in the dark.

It’s… embarrassing, isn’t it.

How much he sleeps. How he can’t physically live without his mum, how he’s certain he’d die without someone there to make sure he did the bare necessities to survive.

How he forgets. How his endless hours of sleep only get him enough energy for a few hours worth of recording or streaming, before he crawls back to the darkness that envelops him.

It’s probably bothersome, as well. Everyone else had their shit together, everyone else depended on him, and George was constantly failing them. A constant disappointment to the people he cared about.

They’d… They’d probably be better off, if George stopped being their friend. Their time would be more well-spent, anyways, if they weren’t constantly waiting for a man who wouldn’t show. For a man who didn’t have the strength to even open his eyes. For a man with exhaustion so deeply weighted in his bones that he’d have to tear himself apart to get rid of it.

When he turns his phone back on, he doesn’t watch the rest of the stream. Instead, he goes to their group Discord. The last message sent had been an apology from George for being late to a stream, and he winced. Just seeing it increased the ache that had begun to settle in his heart.

His body feels too heavy as he types out some vague excuse as to why he wouldn’t be online anymore. Not on his phone, not on his laptop, not on his PC. Something about his WiFi being down. He doesn’t think too hard about it.

He sends the messages and immediately powers his phone down. He didn’t want anyone to wake him up with notifications, phone calls, or anything of that sort.

If they would even message. If they would even care.

Still, George shoves the phone underneath his pillow, as though to muffle even the ghost of a ringtone.

With his heart down to the floor, a dull ache causing it to thump mournfully against his chest, he leans into the pillow to sleep.

He almost hopes he never wakes up again.


	2. You Drift to Your Room and You Sleep For Years

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> George doesn't get better. His mum decides it's time to intervene, but she doesn't know how. She knows of some people who do, though.

**_Dream:_ ** _ George _

**_Dream:_ ** _ Are we recording today? We’ve got about five minutes until Sapnap logs on _

**_Dream:_** _George we’re waiting for you_

**_Dream:_ ** _ George? You there? Is your wifi still down? _

_ 3 missed calls from Dream _

_ 1 Voicemail from Dream _

**_Dream:_ ** _ How is your wifi still down? It’s been like two days _

**_Dream:_ ** _ George _

**_Dream:_ ** _ George answer _

***

George’s eyes sting. He blinks languidly at the ceiling above him, willing moisture to refill his dry eyes.

The fan blows frigid air towards him. It would be so easy to pull the blanket tighter around him, retain his body heat within a small fabric cove.

He doesn’t. His limbs feel too heavy to do anything but lie there, continuing his slow sink into the mattress below him.

It’s completely dark in the room, aside from a warm light coming from underneath the door. It’s been a day or two, he thinks, since the stream, but he can’t be certain. He still hasn’t turned his phone on, or done anything that would indicate how long it’s been. He remembers waking up, though, to soft sunlight pouring through the slim openings in his blinds, and then waking up a second time to darkness.

He hasn’t eaten in… He doesn’t remember. But his stomach dutifully doesn’t rumble, so it doesn’t really matter. He’s not hungry, anyway.

His hazy staring at the ceiling is interrupted by a soft knocking on the door. Glancing towards the light, he can see a faint shadow.

George doesn’t respond, and his mum seems to take that as a sign to come in. It usually is, he supposes.

“George?”

He hums lightly in response.

A light sigh passes his mother’s lips. She sits on the edge of the bed, running her hands through his hair, and he almost winces. He hasn’t showered in who knows how long, it must feel disgusting.

“You’re not streaming today?”

A shake of the head.

“No recording or anything? I haven’t heard you talk to any of your friends in a while.”

Another shake of the head. He returns his gaze to the ceiling above him, willing his expression into passivity.

He’s such a shit son, lying to his mother like this. Acting as though at any moment, he would actually get up and do shit with his life.

She’ll figure it out, eventually. That he’s a disappointment, who can’t do anything aside from sink into the mattress below him.

“You alright, hun?”

A small, pitiful shrug. It’s not a yes, not a complete lie, but it's not a no either.

“Alright. I have to grab something from the shops real quick, but call me if you need anything, okay?”

George nods, even as he knows he won’t. He won’t need anything, and even if he did, he wouldn’t bother his mum with that. Further than that, his phone is still shut down and shoved under layers of blankets and pillows. George isn’t even sure he’d be able to find it without putting some effort in (effort he doesn’t have energy for).

With that, his mother exits and softly clicks the door shut. A few seconds later, the yellow light illuminating from underneath the door turns off.

The room is completely dark.

George isn’t tired. Not really.

He closes his eyes anyways.

***

**_Quackity:_ ** _ AYOO GEORGE _

**_Quackity:_ ** _ GET ON MY STREAM MAMACITA _

_ 2 missed calls from Quackity _

_ 1 voicemail from Quackity _

**_Quackity:_ ** _ george? you there? theres no fucking way your wifi isn’t fixed yet _

**_Quackity:_ ** _ and phone calls dont even need wifi _

**_Quackity:_ ** _ george _

**_Quackity:_ ** _ george _

_ 3 missed calls from Quackity _

_ 1 voicemail _

_ 2 missed calls from Quackity _

**_Quackity:_ ** _ you alright george? been a few days, you havent responded to any of my messages _

**_Quackity:_ ** _ dream said you missed a recording too _

**_Quackity:_ ** _ actually, george, im getting worried about you _

**_Quackity:_ ** _ call me back when you can _

***

There’s extra food on the stovetop.

There always is. George doesn’t eat, really. Hardly did before, but his mum would always bring up a plate for him. Sometimes he’d eat it, and other times it would go cold on the floor.

It hardly bothered her, though. It was more worrisome than anything, but George was a grown man. She couldn’t force him to go to therapy, or take meds, or get out of bed long enough for her to talk with him about what’s wrong.

It was alright, though. She would support George for as long as he needed, with anything he needed.

But recently, things were getting… worse. If she were choosing lighter terms.

George wasn’t eating. What was brought into the room looked exactly the same when she took it out a few hours later.

The same could be said for George himself, though. Always in the same place, never off of the bed. Blankets pushed around his frame, almost burying him. Sometimes he’d be wrapped in them, the fabric covering everything aside from his face. Other times, he wouldn’t even be sleeping. Just lying on his back or on his side, staring unfocused at the wall or ceiling. If she was lucky, George would slide his gaze towards her as she walked in the room. Most times George wouldn’t even acknowledge her until she spoke. He certainly wasn’t getting up to shower, brush his teeth, anything else he probably needed.

Even that, though, wasn’t enough to raise her worry higher than what it was usually at. George had off-days, sometimes, and she was more than willing to sit beside him and rub her fingers along his shoulders until he drifted off into sleep.

The thing that really worried her was that he hadn’t talked to any of his friends.

It had been a few days now. She may not have been an expert in YouTube, or Twitch, or any of the stuff her son had mastered. But she knew, generally, her son’s schedule. Even if he wasn’t recording, he usually talked to his friends at least once or twice a day. Whether it be at his computer, or on the phone, it wasn’t uncommon to hear his voice and giggles float down the hall towards her bedroom (And oh, how she would kill for that sound. The gentle orchestra of laughs rolling off of George’s tongue, a sign that he was happy, even if just for a moment. She didn’t even care if he was loud. He could be loud all he wanted, if it meant that he had found it within him to rise).

She frowns as she taps her finger against the wooden dinner table below her. All of this has led to her current predicament: Scrolling through social media to find out if anything happened to her son.

Maybe, in a different situation, she’d be embarrassed to look up her son’s name on Twitter. But after his complete silence, and refusal to talk about what was obviously upsetting him, she had to look into things on her own.

Her original thought, a flurry of worry and anger, had been that they had a falling out. It seemed unlikely, with how long George had known his friends (Though she’s pretty sure the boy on the phone is pretty new), but she couldn’t think of any other reason.

(She could. The real reason was glaringly obvious. The reason was given in the sweat in George’s hair, the low-turn of his eyebrows as his eyelids flutter in sleep. The reason was given in the gentle curve of his knuckles as he grips the blankets closer to him, as though hiding from the darkness constantly surrounding him. She could think of another reason. She just didn’t want it to be true.)

Any thoughts of a falling out, publicly, at least, is quickly diminished. The only thing she finds online are various tweets wondering why George hadn’t been streaming. Nothing from his friends, no clips of arguments or dramatic goodbyes.

She can’t ignore it any longer, can she?

She takes a deep breath as she leans back in her chair.

The food is cold now. She should probably take care of it.

Yet, she simply sits, staring at the pots and pans from afar.

She would give it a few days. Maybe this was just a fluke. Maybe George was just in a slump. Maybe he just needed time to pick himself back up.

If nothing changed in a few days, well…

The plate of untouched dinner from George’s room gets tossed in the bin.

***

**_Sapnap:_ ** _ you there george? _

**_Sapnap:_ ** _ you havent said anything to us in a long time _

**_Sapnap:_ ** _ is everything okay or what _

_ 1 missed call from Sapnap _

**_Sapnap:_ ** _ we’re really worried about u george _

**_Sapnap:_ ** _ please answer _

**_Sapnap:_ ** _ did we do something wrong? did something happen at home? _

**_Sapnap:_ ** _ we’re here for u, george _

_ 2 missed calls from Sapnap _

**_Sapnap:_ ** _ george please answer _

**_Sapnap:_ ** _ please _

***

George is bored out of his mind.

It’s been… a while, he thinks. He doesn’t know exactly how long.

In his moments of being awake, he considers turning on his phone. Letting the brightness blind him, just so he could scroll through Twitter.

The only thing stopping him is the anxiety that threatens to pull him under at even the thought.

He would have to deal with them, then. Deal with the numerous texts of disappointment and displeasure. If there were even any texts at all.

It’s another possibility that George has considered. He had been isolating himself partially, after all, for the benefit of his friends. So they could get work done, have fun together, move on without him dragging them behind.

So maybe they just let him. Maybe they didn’t even notice that he wasn’t trailing behind them anymore. Or maybe they realized and just didn’t care.

The thought keeps him from turning the power on. Instead, he keeps his fingers curled loosely around the metal frame. It’s cold; grounding, almost. The cold seeps through his fingertips, and it tingles in such a way that George almost pulls away.

He doesn’t, though. Just lets the gentle hum of discomfort prick at his skin.

The fan his mum had set up however many days ago is still going strong. It’s frigid in the room, now, practically freezing, but it's only more excuse for George to hide away in his blankets.

He wonders if Quackity has called him.

The thought makes him curl into himself.

Probably not. Or maybe he had called once, twice, before he realized how much of a disappointment George is. How it’s a waste of time to even try on him. How he had been wasting his time all of these months.

The Dream Team had probably reached out. Just about streaming though, or the videos that he inevitably missed filming. It’s alright, though. He’s sure the videos will be just fine without him. Better, even. Done on time, and on plan, and just how Dream and Sapnap liked. Dream and Sapnap had known each other so much longer than they had known him. They had been fine all of those years, they’d certainly be fine now. Without George throwing off their videos. Without him fucking up, without his lame attempts at producing good content.

Distantly, his mind locks in that the phone is staying off.

He doesn’t want to be there to hear his friends talk about how useless he is. Not again. He doesn’t know if he could handle that.

He blinks as the dryness in his eyes sets in.

He can’t be online.

Not again.

Never again.

***

George hadn’t gotten better. It had been about a week and a half by this point, and George’s mum had only seen George get up to go to the bathroom.

He hadn’t been eating, or talking to friends, or streaming.

She had to do something. She had to do something more.

“George?” She says softly as she knocks on the door. “Are you awake?”

George doesn’t answer. He never does, but she always tries. Just in case.

It had been her last shred of hope. That maybe he would finally speak up and give her some sign that he was okay.

But he didn’t. So with a deep breath of preparation, she pushes open the door.

She’s almost holding her breath as she walks towards George.

His eyes are closed, shoulders moving slightly due to the rise and fall of his chest. The blankets are pulled up to his chin, wrapping him in an almost comical cocoon of fabric and plush. “George?” She tries one more time, whispering softly. Yet George doesn’t make any movements.

Cautiously, she reaches a hand towards the blankets. George doesn’t appear to be clutching the blankets, thank God, as it would only make her goal harder.

She needed his phone.

She had tried, and failed, to help. There was only so much she could do, a single mother, not even at home most of the time due to work.

She didn’t know what to do. But maybe someone else would.

It’s freezing in the room, but with how many blankets surround George she’s surprised he’s not sweating to death.

George hums as the blanket slides past his shoulders and she freezes.

A second passes. Then another.

George still doesn’t wake up, though, so she continues to push it past him.

She hadn’t had luck in helping George with anything else. But luck had to have been on her side in this, because sitting right by his arm is the dark metal of George’s phone.

A small puff of breath releases from her lips. She reaches out an arm, slow and steady, wrapping a few slender fingers around the case.

George only shifts once more as she pulls the phone away from him. A small whimper escapes his lips, and she winces.

It was alright, though. It was alright, because she would get help soon. She’d figure out what to do.

She wastes no time the moment she leaves the room. As quietly as she can, she scampers down the stairs towards her kitchen space.

She could figure this out.

She knows his phone password, thankfully. George had told her a few months ago, when she had forgotten her phone at home.

And oh God, the amount he’s missed.

There’s hundreds of notifications, mixed between normal phone calls and Discord messages.

She knows how to handle phone calls far better than she knows Discord, however, so she calls back one of the more recent calls.

She doesn’t know what time it is in Florida (Where Dream lives, if she remembers correctly). Her fingers twist the bottom of her shirt as the phone rings out.

She tries to convince herself that it’s all okay. If Dream doesn’t answer, there are others. Others who could tell her what to do. Others who could give her instruction on how the hell she was supposed to help her son.

The ringing continues, and then-

“George! What the hell, man, where have you been? Are you okay? We haven’t heard from you in forever, we thought something had happ-”

“Hello?” She interrupts, timidly. “No, no, this isn’t- This isn’t George. This is his mum.”

Silence overtakes the call for a second. 

“No,” Dream’s voice mumbles through the receiver.

“I’m- I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“Tell me he’s okay,” Dream says, a sense of dread laced through his words. “God, please tell me he’s okay-”

“Oh! No, no, don’t worry, he’s fine. He’s fine, really, he’s just…” She frowns.

“He’s what?” Dream asks, and the worry poured into his tone finally breaks something in her.

“I just don’t know what to do,” she murmurs, finally speaking the words into existence. It’s different than repeating them in her head. It feels more solid, more weighted. The words don’t float out of her mouth like air. They drop instead, as if they were too heavy for the air to support.

“What happened?” Dream asks, still sounding awfully dreadful, and she isn’t sure she managed to comfort the man at all in her words. “Is George alright?”

She shakes her head even though Dream can’t see it. “No. God, no, he’s not,” she says with a wet chuckle. “I can’t get him out of bed, he’s not eating, Dream. He hasn’t- He hasn’t talked to any of you, that’s the only thing he looks forward to nowadays and he isn’t even doing that-” she has to stop to take a breath. Tears drip silently from her lashes, as though in fear that if a drop hits the floor too hard George will wake up from upstairs. “I just need you guys to help.”

There’s silence on the other end, and for a second she’s worried she’s asking for too much. But then-

“Yeah. Yeah, of course, I just- How? Whatever you need, we’ll do it, I just don’t know…” Dream trails off. There’s still a nervous sort of hitch to his voice.

She takes a deep breath, preparing herself for failure.

It’s a big ask.

She knows it’s a big ask.

“Come up here.”

The silence floats through the phone, before a hesitant, “What?” rings out.

“Come up. To George. I can’t do anything, and I just think… I hope. I hope that maybe if he saw you guys, he’d… I don’t know. Get better?” She shakes her head “Sorry, that’s stupid. I know that’s not how it works, I just thought…”

Her face is starting to heat up as silence comes through the phone again. Maybe she should be embarrassed by this request, but she can’t be. She refuses to be. Not if it’s a request that will finally support her son.

“All of us?”

Her chest tightens. “I don’t know. I haven’t really thought that far, to be honest, I just… anyone can come. Whoever wants to, whoever George is close to. I don’t care. Whatever will help him.”

There’s a hum from the phone.

“Okay. Yeah, yeah, we’ll all be down. As soon as possible.”

A sigh releases from the tightness of her chest. “Thank you. Really, thank you, thank you so much.”

The conversation doesn’t last much longer than that. They discuss dates, trade phone numbers so she doesn’t have to take George’s phone again. Gentle apologies are traded for murmured reassurances.

And then the phone call is over. She can’t decide whether it ended too soon or not soon enough.

But the kitchen is now left in a thickened silence, and she has to return the phone back to George’s room before the man wakes up.

And anyways. She had a house to prepare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoping I can get the next chapter up quick cause it's Quackity based and I'm SO excited for it. Literally hyped.
> 
> You may have noticed I added a few more chapters! Not too many more, I just really wanted to focus on George's interactions with each individual person who helps. So be on the lookout for that!
> 
> Comments and kudos are so greatly appreciated (and y'all who bookmark with something funny, I love reading through that shit). Let me know how you felt about this chapter! Thoughts, opinions, criticism, I love it all.
> 
> Love you all! Thank you so much for the support!

**Author's Note:**

> You know the drill! Leave comments, kudos, whatever you're thinking! Praise, general comments, and criticism, I love it all! (Though, everyone is so nice on this website, I don't know if I've ever seen anyone critique a piece of writing. Feel free to let me know what I can do better!)
> 
> Love you all! Thank you for all of your support!


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